Improvement in india-rubber hose-pipe



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE;

CHARLES MOBURNEY, OF ROXBURY, MASSACHUSETTS.

IMPROVEMENT IN INDIA-RUBBER HOSE-PIPE.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 22,566, dated January 11, 1859.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, CHARLES MOBURNEY, of Boxbury, in the county of Norfolk and State of Massachusetts, have invented an lmproved Vulcanized Composition Pipe for Conveying Water, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description and specification:

The leaden pipes now generally employed as conduits for water are open to several objections, which it is the object of my present invention to remove. Among these objections may be enumerated, first, the deleterious effects of the lead upon the health of those drinking the water passed through them; seeondly, the high original cost of the pipe; thirdly, the liability of the pipe to be ruptured by the freezing of water within it. It is obvious that, in addition to being free from these objections, a pipe that shall replace the leaden conduit now generally in use must be, first, sufficiently strong to enable it to resist the pressure of the water within; second, so rigid that it shall not collapse when used as a pump-log or suction-hose; third, so elastic that it may be bent by the plumber without breaking, and not be liable to be burst by the freezing of water within it; fourth, of small original cost, and, fifth, durable and indestructible when exposed to moist situations.

Many efforts have been made to manufae ture a water-pipe of vulcanized india-rubber, but without success. The pipes made have been found not to possess the requisite rigidity to prevent them from collapsing, and they have also proved not to be sufficiently indestructible when placed in the ground or in other moistsituations. The material known as hard rubber has also proved to be inapplicable to the purpose, on account of itsextreme rigidity, which prevents it from being bent, as is necessary when such pipes are employed in buildings, in lieu of the lead pipes now in use. Alter many experiments and years of trial I have succeeded in producing a semi-elastic pipe having great strength and durability, that can be bent by the plumber, and is sufficiently rigid to prevent it from collapsing when used as a pump-log or suctionhose, that will not'be ruptured by the freezing of water Within it, and that will impart no unwholesome or disagreeable property to the water which passes through it.

To enable others skilled in the art to understand my invention, I will proceed to describe the manner in which 1 have carried it out.

The material of which the pipe is madeis compounded as follows: twelve pounds ofrags, cuttings or trimmings of cloth that have been coated with unvulcanized india-rubber; twelve pounds rubber; twenty-five pounds flowers of sulphur; six pounds dry oxide of zinc or other metallic oxide used in the manufacture of india-rubber. These materials are then to be ground or mixed together into one mass by any of the usual methods of treating gum, and the compound is rolled into sheets, which are then cut into strips and formed into a tube upon a suitable mandrel, any required number of plies or thicknesses being used to give the tube the requisite rigidity and strength. The pipe is then passed upon an iron mandrel, and is submitted to the vulcanizing or heating process at a temperature of 270 Fahrenheit for four and a half hours. The metallic oxide is employed to give the pipe the requisite strength after it is vulcanized. The rags or clippings are employed for the purpose of givingtenacity to the material while it is being worked and before it isvulcanized, and their use greatly facilitates the operation of forming the material into sheets and renders it unnecessary to employ cloth between the successive layers of rubber. Such cloth may, however, be employed, the sheets of rubber being spread upon the cloth as they are formed. The rags contain soluble mineral substances used in the preparation of theindia-rubber cloth, and in order to prevent such substances from coming in contact with the water or other liquid within the pipe, I sometimes line the latter with a preparation of india-rubber composed entirely of insoluble articles. The compound for this lining is composed as follows: twenty five pounds best gum; twelve pounds flowers of sulphur; six pounds silica, pulverized; two pound calcined magnesia. These ingredients are ground together and formed into a thin sheet, which is cut into strips sufficiently wide to wrap once round the mandrel upon which the pipe is to be formed. Over this lining the successive layers of the first-described compound are wrapped and the pipe is vulcanized, as before.

The proportions of the ingredients given above are those which I have found to best A semi-elasticcompositionpipecompounded answer the purpose; but theymay be slightly of the ingredients and in the proportions subvaried without materially altering the result. stantiallyherein specified, when vulcanized as In such case, however, it will he found necesset forth. sary to change the temperature orduration of vulcanization to correspond with the propor- I CHAS. MOBURNEY. tions of the materials employed.

\Vhat I claim as my invention, and desire to \Vitnesses: secure by Letters Patent in a new article of THOS. R. ROAOH, manufacture, isl THOS. L. GLOVER. 

